Rico Frederick

JUSTMEDIA is an open-access, lens-based media archive designed to support systemic reform through the art of storytelling. JustMedia focuses on challenging the criminal legal system by platforming existing films and other storytelling media in conjunction with curated curricula and community outreach events to underscore the power of anti-carceral storytelling as a media literacy tool.

Creative Director
Head of the Creative Department for a non-profit, overseeing the creative process from concept to completion. 

Duties include: managing two interns, redesign/management of website, production budget, revising digital presentations, outreach/promo materials, video assets, proposals, planning company advertisements, monitoring brand campaigns, social media assets, and shaping brand standards to match the requests of the Executive Director

• logo / letterhead / powerpoint presentations / curriculum booklets/toolkits
• design frontend of website landing page/branding
• redesign of website/mobile layout and search engine structure
• translate marketing objectives into clear creative strategies
• work closely with multidisciplinary project teams, particularly IT / web developer
• lead and direct the creative team in the production of all marketing assets: indoor/outdoor/virtual
• social media agency research and acquisition / team management
• ensure visual communication and brand standards are met

| Website Frontend Design | Mobile Site Design | Outreach Marketing Materials | Social Media Assets | Curriculum Booklet/Toolkit Design | Artist Installation

Creative Design
CLIO Silver Winner 2016 – Dos Equis, Most Interesting Man, Final Interview (Adios Amigo)

Creating promotional ad materials for the marketing department
Faux cover and editorial ad layout for Dos Equis
Cover design and ad layout for LEVI’S Iconic Denim
Editorial ad layout for Gillette

Collaborating with local and international authors, as well as national organizations to create various book covers, interior book layouts, album art, logos, ads, posters, web banners, social media platforms, and other campaign materials for promotional marketing and sales ventures.

Clients:
Amanda Gorman
Dr. Mahogany L Browne
Jive Poetic
Amir Sulaiman
Dr. Adam Falkner
Cynthia Manick
Zora Howard
Carvens Lissaint
Arden Levine
JustMedia Inc (Curriculum Booklets)
Cave Canem (Annual Report)
Urban Word NYC: Youth Poet Laureate (via Penmanship Books)

J. Walter Thompson (JWT)
Art Director

Clients include: Estée Lauder Companies (Aramis, Tommy Hilfiger, Aerin Lauder, Tory Burch, Donna Karan, Coach, and more) 

Managing a team of branding and mechanical artist, collaborating with Creative Directors, Brand Managers and Video Producers to create video shorts, gift endings for international marketing, digital platforms and in-store promotions.

Developing and design print advertisement and brand collateral,
story boards, brochures, book covers, mall banners, interior art, flyers, direct mails, sales sheets
• brand identity (logos and letterheads) and packaging
• photo retouching and color correcting

Print Production Designer

Clients include: GAP, Nautica, Juicy Couture, Vera Wang, Bottega Veneta, DKNY and Schweppes

Collaborating with Art Directors and Copy Writers in creating ad mechanicals for magazines, billboards, production proofs, comps and mock-ups for new business presentations.

Write It Up is a writing and strategic communications firm that helps Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies and nonprofits elevate their content. We combine strategic vision with well thought-out copy to produce impactful communications—so you can soar.

This black woman-owned firm has a strong record of creating meaningful content for global brands. Industry leaders and world-class brands trust us with their content.

Creative Director
Managing a small design team, closely working with Founder and CEO, to deliver clean, professional, branding concepts for high-end private, corporate, olympic, and government clients.

• Create engaging designs for a wide range of assets including but not limited to: print ads, web banners, logos, icons, infographics, presentations, packaging, promotional materials, marketing collateral, brochures, and event booths

• Create compelling presentations in PowerPoint and work with stakeholders to ensure key message are presented effectively

• Work with members of the marketing team and other internal stakeholders during client kickoffs, and planning phases to understand design requirements and strategic vision

• Partner with external agency and freelance partners, providing creative direction when needed and ensuring alignment with brand guidelines

| Logo Design | Brand Design | Promotional Marketing Materials | Web/Online Materials | Social Media Assets | Brochures | Brand Guide Design | PowerPoint Presentations | Event Materials

Senior Production Artist

Print Production Manager of all promotional materials, supervising a production team with a keen ability to successfully meet tight deadlines, manage work flow to finalize files in accordance with numerous high-profile magazines and various international vendors.

Dispatching of ads into data systems for production
• coordinating typesetting, photography, graffiti art, and illustration
• preparing release files to printers and various international trade publications

Resident Art Director/Designer (freelance)
– Design of all brand event promotional materials

• National Youth Poet Laureate Campaign
Over 25+ iconic logo designs for each participating city/state
• Book Covers
• Booklets
• Posters
• Print Banners
• Flyers
• Diverse Web Materials

• Annual NYC Youth Poetry Slam at the Apollo Theater

PAGE 73 Productions

Finalist: Stew, by Zora Howard - The Pulitzer Prizes | 2021

STEW
As the Sr. Graphic Designer, I was engaged in creating original promotional materials for the play, “STEW.” The project scope included the main graphics (poster & postcard), as well as multiple versions with specified uses for print/digital, web, & social media. I enjoyed illustrating the main characters to convey the generational story told within this splendid production.

MAN CAVE
The following year and through the pandemic, I was commissioned to design and develop print/digital, web, & social media promo materials for “Man Cave.” Adding my concept skills to artfully articulate this real and supernatural (PLAY).

La RACE
Welcoming back the opportunity to continue my design relationship with Page 73. I was excited to develop the creative for “La RACE” an unconventional (PLAY) which navigates race, identity, gentrification, and local Brooklyn politics.

| Logo Design | Illustration | Gif Animation | Font Design | Print/Digital Design | Social Media Assets

As a Graduate Assistant, I had the opportunity to design promotional materials for the BFA and MFA writing departments of Pratt Institute.
Creating multiple Posters, Banners, Web Banners, and artwork that were shown on campus-wide monitors.

FEAST On Our FAMINE
PRATT Institute – MFA in Writing (Thesis on Design)

Graphic Designer/Visual Art Installation

RESEARCH
This artwork imagines a historically imperial FEAST on the FAMINE of Africanism, the blk ingenuity of survival. It uses a cross-section of the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes quotes) + Trinidadian-West Indian dialect with modern-day texting linguistics to highlight the author’s intersectionality within current times as a form of self-preservation. I designed this place setting to further ask the questions: Who has a seat at the table? Why do generations of blk folk know how to set this table but may never have a seat at it? How many people suffer at this Feast On Our Famine? What are the economic, social + emotional cost of blk death for all in America?

PROJECT
Poetry is transformed into a dinner setting designed around the beautification + elitism of colonial capitalism + the effect it has had + continues to have on African-Americans through the viewpoint of a West Indian American, living in the U.S. for over twenty years.

The concept started with a three-poster document, designed in Illustrator using Photoshop + finalized in InDesign in the spring of 2017. Then a critique discussion was had with M.F.A.cohorts + professors as to the implications + implementation of the design as an installation. Converting the poster into an actual life-size place setting was the outcome. It was my goal to create an art installation, to inter-activate the production of ceramic plates by producing decals that were applied to the plates + fired to complete the final dishware. Audio + poetry added by light-activated sound modules. Also, produced were fabric napkins made to look-like hundred-dollar bills.

OVERVIEW
Problem-solving as an access point to mobilizing myself, various people, movements, + creative situations are the catalysts for my inventions. I treat writing + the table “Feast On Our Famine,” which in itself is a poem, as a picture frame wherein people can digest a penned narrative developed to help picture emotionally charged artwork. I do not demand that someone fix my problems, but rather help me plot positive predictions for a better outlook; e.g., if I plan to manufacture these poems decorated on ceramic plates, projected on walls, printed on fabrics, etched in wood, letterpress on patch paper. I ask the questions: “Could you chat with me briefly about how ‘you’ would approach this project with your particular skills as a guide?” 

ARTIST STATEMENT
As an artist, I straddle two worlds: I am a graphic designer and poet who strives to amplify the visual discussion between words and images, fusing illustrations, fonts, and graphics to engage the reader the way a storyteller from my homeland of Trinidad would. Poetry to me is skillfully moving language to tell one’s history emotionally, sonically, physically, and verbally. My intention is to change the focus on black men’s and women’s experiences from icons of death to humans–being. I want to contribute works centered around empowering positive conversations about our commonality as people and innovators of social advocacy. I treat writing in dialect + the interactive table “Feast On Our Famine,” which in itself is a poem, as a picture frame wherein people can digest a penned narrative developed to help focus my emotionally charged artwork. Problem-solving as an access point to mobilizing myself, various audiences, movements, + creative situations are the catalysts for my inventions. I do not demand that someone fix my problems, but rather help me plot positive predictions for a better outlook, e.g., if I plan to manufacture these poems decorated on ceramic plates, projected on walls, printed on fabrics, etched in wood, letterpress on patch paper. I ask the questions: “Could you chat with me briefly about how ‘you’ would approach this project with your particular skills as a guide?” My current work transforms my original poetry into a dinner setting designed around the beautification and elitism of colonial capitalism and the effect it has had and continues to have on African Americans through the viewpoint of a West Indian American, living in the U.S. for over twenty years. Asking the primary question: Who has a seat at this table and who determines our place setting? 

“Teach me how you would un-complicate this joy I’m messin’ with?”

CLIENTS: Delta, JFK Millennium Partners, Lincoln Center (We Are the Work), Second Peninsular (Brief But Spectacular), Coco & Elsie Books, ScaryCrit Podcast, Starting Equipment Podcast, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Harlem Theatre Festival, World Faith, etc.

I dedicate considerable time to research, mood board, illustration of ideas, concept development, asset creation, mockups, first draft, second draft, final revisions, final review and finalization and distribution of completed digital and print ready logo for multiple platforms.

Example of my process:

• On the first draft logo exploration I successfully identified the color way, the font direction.

• On the second draft, I narrowed down the stacked and flat versions, including the artistic direction of the logo.

• Finalization of the typography, scaling of assets, and approval by the client.

• Collection and transfer of all Final Logos: Stacked, Wide and Badge with fonts and color ways. Assets provided: pdf, ai, eps, svg, png, jpegs.

Compass Song
A public art project by Mendi+Keith Obadike

I was contracted to design the app icons and mobile layout. This was an artistically fulfilling opportunity to venture into web design / social media content development.

Created by Mendi + Keith Obadike and inspired by Time Square’s rich history as a crossroads, Compass Song is an app-based public sound artwork, a lyrical piece about finding your way at the “crossroads of the world.” The word ‘compass’ can refer to a navigational tool, a circular path, or the tonal range of a musical instrument.

WEB: www.compasssong.com